Twelve Days of Christmas: Most Incredible Gift
by Brightness Wordweaver
Summary: This was not how the Parrs had planned to spend Christmas Day.


A/N: Welcome to Day Five of my Twelve Days of Christmas ficathon! Every day will be a different fandom, so look for the full list on my profile. Today's loose prompt: five golden rings.

...

"Well, honey, you gotta admit this is a new one," Bob Parr, better known as Mr. Incredible, pointed out to his wife. "We've never had a bad guy stick us in a containment unit on _Christmas_ before."

"We need to get out of here," Helen said, ignoring the attempt at levity. "I left the ham in the oven, and if I don't get back in time to take it out, nobody's going to want to eat it."

"I will!" Dash volunteered from his holding cell. By all appearances, he was zipping back and forth inside the perimeter of a glowing yellow circle on the floor. In fact, the circle merely served to mark where the edges of the force field containing him lay. Simple, but ingenious.

Helen chose to ignore her son's comment-he would eat anything. "Violet, you having any luck over there?"

"Not really," the teen admitted. "These force fields are different enough from mine that I can't mess with them, but-" she tried something with her hands and grimaced "-they're similar enough that I can't send _my_ force fields through them either."

"Dad, can you punch through the floor?" Dash asked eagerly.

"Hypothetically, yes, but it's reinforced concrete so I'd be lucky to get us out by next Christmas." Bob slumped against the invisible wall of his holding cell, wearing a glum expression.

Helen recognized the expression-it was a common one whenever the family's crime-fighting antics got them into really serious trouble and Bob was beating himself up over it. Only this particular bad guy wasn't all that dangerous-he just had a better-than-average prison and had managed to capture them on Christmas Day, of all days.

"Look," she said gently. "I know it's Christmas and there're a lot of places we'd all rather be right now. But at least we're together. Getting to fight crime as a family is a good thing, no matter what." She smiled. "It might just be the best Christmas gift I've ever gotten."

"Better than the Christmas of '94?" Bob asked slyly. Both remembered that Christmas with unusual clarity-it had been the one where Bob had asked her to marry him, and they'd told each other about their secret identities. Helen grinned back at him.

"Ga ga!" A sudden baby squeal broke up the moment. Jack-Jack had managed, apparently by sheer accident, to teleport out of his cell.

"Great job, Jack-Jack!" the family cheered on the baby as one. "Now just go push the button to let us out," Dash encouraged.

Jack-Jack, quite naturally, didn't understand a word of this, and amused himself by teleporting at random all over the room. Helen kept an eye on him, but knew he wouldn't wander-Jack-Jack had learned to stay within eyeshot of Mom while they were wearing the red suits.

"So much for that escape idea," Bob said ruefully, dropping back to a sitting position.

"We'll figure something out," Helen said as comfortingly as she could. "Besides, I meant what I said earlier. Fighting crime as a family is the best Christmas gift I've gotten, even if it means the ham gets burned to a crisp." She gave a little sideways smile. "Although I think the Christmas of '94 is a solid tie."

There was a faint crackling pop, and Jack-Jack teleported into Violet's cell. Violet yelped and grabbed the baby, just before he disappeared again-this time, taking her with him.

Bob, Helen, and Dash watched agape.

"That's new," Bob said.

"Jack-Jack can teleport other people now! That's so cool!" Dash enthused. "We gotta work out some moves, where I go really fast and then Jack-Jack teleports us-"

"Work it out later," Violet called from the room's control panel, as she disabled the force fields. "We gotta stop this bad guy and get home in time for Christmas dinner."

"Yeah! Let's go kick some..." The rest of Dash's sentence was lost as he sprinted away. Laughing in spite of themselves, Bob and Helen followed at a normal jog, Violet catching up behind with Jack-Jack over her shoulder.

It was Christmas Day, and they were together, charging into battle against a seriously misguided supervillain who wanted to cover the entire city in fishing lures. And it felt...incredible.


End file.
